Strategies to Combat "Repeating Records" from PD

[EntWife]

Does anyone have a strategy for overcoming the thing a PD said that play like a broken record in our heads?

Growing up my uBPD sister was annoyed by my very existence. As a child she killed my parakeet (I only recently realized THAT'S why his death didn't make sense) and as an adult she did something to my birth certificate (it went missing from our parents' safe after she went into it to get something) and threw away my box of childhood memorabilia (which had all my awards and certificates from preschool through my bachelor's degree).

She constantly treated me as if I was annoying, told me I was annoying, and constantly told me everyone else thought I was annoying - they were just "pretending" to like me because they "feel sorry for" me.

9 years of therapy and I still wonder if people are annoyed by me. I no longer WORRY about it, but I will wonder about it and get sad about it. And when my husband's ADD is bad I immediately go to that same place: "it must be that I'm being annoying so I should give him space."

I'd love a way to STOP and even DESTROY this record!

[sunshine702]

Aww having want and needs and personal papers and parakeets is not annoying.  I am sorry she made you feel that way. 

I mantra - I am ok.  I am good enough.   People like me. 

It may seem cheesy but it works

[Andeza]

I have heard that over time negative thoughts create a "rut" in the pathways of the brain. Just like a big truck in a ditch after a rainstorm. (my redneck is showing, sorry)

Therfore the best way to combat this rut is to stop taking the same path. But habits are hard to break. The longer you've had a habit, the harder it is to break.

So if I may, I would suggest you set out, not to break the habit... But to alter it instead. You're already in the rut, let's redirect the momentum by, every time the record says "I'm annoying" you say instead "that is not my voice or my truth. I am a good person. I am kind. I am strong..." and then list your positive qualities. If it helps, actually write them down and bring out the list every time you start to get bogged down in the mud.

If this exercise is successful, you begin to feel empowered instead. Eventually you will scoff at that "other voice" that is not your own until it becomes but a fading whisper that tickles your memory from time to time.

You are kind. You are strong. You are able to overcome.

[1footouttadefog]

I have thoughts like that when I am feeling isolated or lonely.  They can then intensify due to avoiding social contact if I am not careful.  I now have things I do and places I go on a weekly basis to avoid isolation. 

We cannot expect our significant otHers to be our entire world especially if they have their own challenges.  Mine sure does.  My taking my needs into my own hands in terms or social contact works well in reducing negative patterns of thinking.

Once a month I go to a neighborhood bar where lots of people and couples stop in for a beer and a snack or to watch the news or a game while having a glass of wine etc.  later they have karaoke,  the employees are all part time and have families and kids etc.  everyone knows each other or at least some others there and their kids play sports together or they see each other at church etc. so it's like a church social or a family gathering.

I also go to meetups.com activities and enjoy others' company.  I find these targeted activities less socially awkward than family or work related events.  This week at a meetup we had dinner and saw  an indie movie related to our groups hobby interest instead of an activity.

[hhaw]

Does anyone have a strategy for overcoming the thing a PD said that play like a broken record in our heads?


I'd love a way to STOP and even DESTROY this record!

Yes. You're talking about the tapes that play in your limbic system..... they kick in when you're unable to control your parasympathetic nervous system which is located in your torso, and involved in shutting down your sympathetic nervous system/reptilian brain/fight or flight/fawn mode. 

The key is to learn how to breathe, and shift non judgmental focus to your inner world, and keep breathing, no matter what.    We do this, bc it's impossible to think our way out of the limbic system/fight or flight mode.  The more we try to banish thoughts when we're upset and struggling, the more they persist....
what we resist, persists is the saying. 
It's true.

Think of yourself trying to draw in gentle forest creatures,  close to you... where you can touch them.   A deer, or a rabbit.

If you chase them, what happens?  They're harder to draw in.   You can't catch them at all.  If you still yourself, like a still flat pond, then the creatures will come to you.  Learning to breathe our way around our limbic systems,  which is a bottom up approach, instead of trying to think our way out.   Bottom up approach means we sneak in, underneath the alarm bells of our amygdala and limbic systems, and we unhook them through engagement of our parasympathetic nervous system,which is the system responsible for turning off our fight or flight symnpathetic nervous system which is our reptilian brain responsible for survival.  There's no logic, or problem solving ability in this part of the brain.  It's all reaction.... we see a stick that looks a bit like a snake, and we find we're suddenly 5 feet away, and don't remember how we got there.  Our amygdala shuts down the frontal lobe, which might wonder if the stick is a snake, leading to a snake bite.  Survival brain SEES a snake in a shape, and reacts in a millisecond.... actually shutting down pathways to the fronta lobe.  We have zero choice here.   

This is great if we're being chased by a mad dog, or fleeing an avalanche, but it becomes PTSD when it pops up when there's no real crisis or danger.  This happens when hard emotions get stuck in our brains, unprocessed.  Our brains can't process while they're shut down in fight or flight...  not the old stuck emotions, which live in the exact place in our brain where they were first experienced.  Experiencing them fools our brain into believing we're THERE, in that time and place, experiencing that threwat again, for real.  The brain can't tell the difference between reality, and a though, or dream for that matter.  IT FEELS REAL.  The brain believes it's real, and our biology is hijacked by the amygdala, just as if we were being chased by that mad dog, or avalanche. 

In order to engage the higher, logical problem solving brain again,  we come from the bottom UP to unhook the alarm bells...we do this with calm, deep breathing,  bc the brain can't stay in crisis mode IF we're breathing calmly.  Fight or Flight mode increases respiration, heart rate, gives us tunnel vision so we're focused on THE threat, and makes all logical thought process impossible to access.... we're in survival mode... we're reacting... unable to choose a response that would better suit the situation.   Calm breathing signals there is no danger to our brain.... it unhooks the alarm bells that would otherwise clang away, and keep us in crisis mode where processing the difficult emotions has become impossible.   The more we struggle, hte more anxiety we have,  and the more we resist the anxiety, the more the emotions persist. What we resist, persists, is how the Ts put it.

These difficult thoughts will come up over and over and over again, bc we haven't been able to process them.  The emotions will contiue popping up, but what they're really doing is asking for our attention. 

They're asking to be tended to. 

They require us to drop judgement around them.... remember to breath deeply and slowly, to shift into observer mode.... and get very curious about them.  If we find the place in your body where that tension lives.... and put our hands on it.... remembering to continue breathing.... we can look at that pain/tension/pressure... whatever it is... and give it our full attention.  What does it feel like?  Give it a number from  1-10.... how bad is it? 

Once we've done that, we can open our eyes and notice what's around us.  Shapes.  Colors.  Smells?  Sounds?  Now notice your peripheral vision.  Notice the space beside you.... under you.... above you.  The space within cells and around the earth, and in the solar system... lots of space.  We can breath that spaciousness INTO the pressure/pain in our body, and expand that spaciousness till we're feeling less stress there.  I breath pink cotton into the area that holds spaciousness, and it really helps reduce or extuinguish that tension FOR ME. 

Sometimes my T uses EMDR,  which means I follow her hand with my eyes.  She moves her hand rapidly back and forth about 18 inches from my face... slow enough to follow, but so fast I struggle... my tongue wants to HELP my eyes move that fast sometimes.  This engages both hemispheres of my brain, with my corpus collosum (the physical bridge between hemispheres) getting a good work out.... helping to integrate right and left hemispheres, which helps the brain process the difficult feelings, and file them away where they belong.  Out of our present day thinking.  Out of the place in our brain it's been living, unprocessed, waiting for our attention.   We can give it that attention.  We can decrease the stress on our nervous system, and brain, engage the frontal cortex, and get that job done. 

It's sort of like tricking our brain out of fight for flight survival mode.  That our brains have been tricked into believing there's real danger is the problem.  We;re providing the solution... and there are many tricks to help us do this.   


Breathing is the first thing we remember,  and DO for ourselves.

If we're in huge distress, the body is poised for action, and can benefit from pushing very hard on a wall or doorjamb, or
walking backwards around a trash can... everything is done while we continue to focus on our breathing.   

Since we're engaging the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) humming and gargling deeply and vigorously is helpful.... that's where the PNS lives inside our bodies.   We can splash our faces with cold water, or get into a cold shower also, but when we breath calmly.... our brains can't stay in fight or flight mode.

TAPPING has been shown to help VETS dealing with PTSD.  The statistics show it to be one of the most effective modes of addressing old trauma stuck in the body.  It's not hard, and there's tons of research on the web...books. 

My T has me karate chop my hands together to engage my computer/brain.  I give the stress and tension a number from 1 - 10 to start with. Then I tap the t points on my face, one at a time, the points under my collar bones,  the points under my armpits, and then the top of my head while I input the problem/emotion/exact details around it in small verbal pieces... tapping on all pointes twice through, which is like feeding it into my brain/computer.  I speak the words out loud, typically after I've made a list of all the troubling things surrounding a thought or event, or story. 

   I move through every aspect of the trauma, what it feels like, what happened, what I felt and smelled, and what I noticed about other people's distress (I'm also dealing with codependency issues) and I do that until I'm through the trauma, and talking my way into how I want to feel, and then to how I DO feel..... I ask to feel more ease, more acceptance, complete and unconditional acceptance of myself with this problem, even if I still have it.   After i finish that process, I check my distress from 1-10 again, and typically the distress is at a zero by that time. 

The trick, for me, is figuring out what works best, and engaging it when I'm in fight or flight mode.  It's not easy.  It's work. hard work. 

The encouraging aspect is our brains have neuroelasticity, and are capable of changing and adapting.  Typically 20 - 60 days of mindful practice is enough to get new pathways up and running.... ready to be strengthened.

Neural pathways that are used often are covered with myelin, which is fat.  It's what gives white brain matter it's color.   Those pathways are lightening fast,  and it's a job to notice when we;re using them, breathe our way out of the crisis mode, and engage the frontal cortex to bring problem solving skills that will help our brains finish processing the difficult feelings, and file them away for good. 

I repeat things, bc it helps ME to hear and read things more than once.  I have to hear and read things in different ways to really internalize concepts as well.

The brain is very efficient, and very frugal.  It moves myelin from pathways we aren't using as much,  and moves it to pathways we're starting to use more and more.  The more we use them, the faster they get.  The faster they get,  the more likely we use them, and the more likely they become our new default pathways.  The fact our brains can adapt  should give us all hope, IME. 

The brain is also terribly efficient, and able to process difficult emotions and trauma in milliseconds.... it just needs a little help sometimes: )

These are experiences I've had with my very excellent Trauma Therapist, which is different than all the other Ts I've seen.

I've studied brain integration, and hope to continue those studies.  Honestly, I've not been very good at taking new infomation on board with the amount of trauma, and distress I've been living with for the past 13 years or so.

New traumas pile up, and I've come to a place where I had to figure this out, or sink into despair.  I want serenity.. not despair, but I had no idea how the brain works, and I put everything down to figure it out.

If I can learn to moderate my emotions, and bring my frontal cortex back online consistently when it's not engaged, THEN I CAN HANDLE ALL THE COWS that come my way, and there will always be COWS (crisis of the week.)

If I master this, I can model it for my daughters,  who will benefit for a lifetime. Imagine learning this before the age of 20yo. 

I will say this... the more I practice self care, and mindful non judgmental focus... my children do better too.  They seem calmer, happier, more affectionate with me, and playful.

It's very difficult to find your chill when your amygdala is whipping your brain and biology into the dirt, like a beach donkey, IME. 

There are many ways to practice TAPPING and EMDR, and breathing, etc.  I've shared my experiences to provide an overview of my understanding around trauma work on a personal level.  There's a huge difference between a regular T and one who specializes in trauma work,  worth their weight in gold, iME.  The T helped me pull together all the information I've studied,  and make sense of it. 

It's a miraculous thing to think about something that used be triggering, and find you can't conjure the old feelings or stress when you try. 

It's a blessing a relief, and worth the time and trouble,  IME. 

20 - 60 days of mindful practice to forge new pathways.  And  it gets easier.  Then hard again.  Then easier.  All the while you're gaining experience,  understanding, and putting new habits in place.  What becomes habit becomes pleasure.  it just takes time, and patience.... deep compassion for ourselves.

Good luck,

[EntWife]

Thank you, all, for your advice.

There's no emotional "charge" with these thoughts. I've done some EMDR with them and it doesn't bring up any powerful emotions. I'll try it again with my therapist, of course.

After writing this I realized I'm feeling really self-conscious when talking to people because I'm a "gloomy-Gus" these days. I lost my dog/soul-mate in January to old-age. He was constantly by my side for 13 years. My husband is doing better, but he was a VP for a psychopath for a couple years and I barely recognized him during that time. I still don't recognize him when he talks to the psycho (which, I'm glad to say, he hasn't done since June). It's hard to trust that he won't go back to being the version of himself that he was while he was VP - I can't stay with him if he does.

I can't help thinking about the fact that even when we find wonderful souls we'll still lose them one way or another - to death (like my dog) or into the F.O.G. (like my husband).

I feel like I'm annoying everyone in my life by not being my usual optimistic-self. I'm reminding myself that I have great people in my life these days and they know how hard things have been for me lately. I'd forgive them for being quiet/gloomy in my situation.

[athene1399]

What a great thread! I have negative thoughts that are from my mom (and a bit from sis as well). They would make me depressed hearing them all the time in my head. Now I label them as "something M says/would say" then I rephrase it more positive. Like if I hear "I am lazy," I remind myself of everything I have going on and that it is ok to take a break once in a while. And that I get plenty of stuff done. I don't always have to be moving or accomplishing something to be a worthwhile person. But labeling the thought of "I am lazy" as not my own thought has helped. Like start by identifying them as "not from you" and then slowly work in new thoughts about it or challenge the negative, alien thought.

I like some of the other ideas on here as well. I will have to try some of the others out.

[SerenityCat]

EntWife, I am so sorry for the loss of your beloved dog. 

[EntWife]

TY, Serenity! 

He made me his priority in a way my parents never could (because my sister raised hell when they prioritized anything but her). That was the kind of love I missed as a child and it was amazing to have it from him.